It
by nimrodcracker
Summary: Just when Amata realises the extent of her feelings for her friend, her friend's lost to the wasteland.


She's here for her.

Amata knows that. Hearing Jenessa prattle on about the thousand and one ways she'll prank Butch and his thugs in revenge, she can sense it hiding behind those words.

It.

No matter that Jenessa was but one person against the Tunnel Snakes.

It.

How can something so profound be simplified to two letters?

She's had a few years to make sense of It, to no avail. It was just...there. In whatever they did, lingering like the perpetual hint of dust and oil on Jenessa's vault suit.

But was it really inevitable? Two friends, inseparable for as long as she can remember, and still remain as that? Because she certainly doesn't think of Jenessa that way. Yet...

She's glad that Jenessa's still talking. Her friend has always been single-minded to the point of obliviousness.

She doesn't want her friend to know. It's better this way.

Especially when she isn't sure about it herself.

* * *

She knows everything is about to fall apart.

Alarms pushed her out of bed this morning, but it was her father's voice that woke her up. They were just words on the fringes of her hearing, so why were they like shouts in her mind?

She doesn't remember how she arrived at Jenessa's bed so quickly, cognisant only of the terror that seizes her the moment her thoughts align.

 _James and Jonas, gone. Father would want to know why. Who would he question?_

 _Jenessa_.

Fear drives her to violently shake her friend (just that?) awake, which her friend finally does after much grumbling. Whatever joke on Jenessa's lips dies together with her smile, and Amata sees the panic creep into those wide, brown eyes.

It.

Amata feels It again, in how her friend absolutely, flat-out _refuses_ the gun she palms into her sweaty hands. Jenessa wants her to have it, even if it leaves her with just a bat. A thin, lightweight bat.

(She doesn't want to think about how useless a Vault jumpsuit is against bullets)

There is nothing funny about appreciating the sudden frailty of their lives, but she's suddenly laughing. She doesn't know how, or remember why, but Jenessa is and that's all that matters, even if the Vault's degenerating into chaos all around them.

They have each other, and sometimes, that's enough.

* * *

She knows she's about to lose her humanity.

Her finger itches towards the trigger of the 10mm she grips, her father's condescension like knifepoints dragging across her skin. She's petrified, she's terrified, but most of all, she's wondering if Jenessa's safely out of the vault.

She told Jenessa to run and never look back, but her friend has never been good at listening.

Her father asks her about Jenessa's whereabouts again. She refuses. Officer Mack's baton will sting her skin again, but she doesn't mind.

 _Father_ is doing this to her, and that hurts her more.

The door slides open. Father and Officer Mack glance over their shoulders.

She runs.

She has a gun in hand, but instinct has her bolting from the room. No thoughts, no feeling, just action. Her brain doesn't register that it was Jenessa who'd barged into the room, let alone conclude that it was completely unnecessary for her friend to do that. To play the hero.

When the lock of her room slides shut, the realisation squeezes the breath from her lungs for the second time today. She's never feared for her friend this much before.

Adrenaline seeps out of her system, and the whirlwind of activity in the last few minutes starts to creep up her skin. Seeing her father so twisted by paranoia, her soul-deep worry for her friend, her decision to shoot Officer Mack if needed - it's too overwhelming. It's too much, too fast. Her shoulders sag with the crushing weight on her shoulders, the harsh sting of _something_ itches at the back of her throat.

She can't hold her tears in.

* * *

When Jenessa appears in her room, she's tempted to chastise her.

Foolish is the word on the tip of her tongue, till she notices the purplish welt on her friend's forehead.

(She dared not ask whose blood it was, staining Jenessa's vault suit. There's more on the bat, but she looks away)

 _How_? she means to say, but Jenessa starts talking first. Insists that she's fine, that Mr Almodovar's still alive, and she'd successfully convinced Butch to _finally_ do something constructive for once. Like saving his mom.

Jenessa's light-hearted tone doesn't quite hide the brittleness of her smile. She sees how her friend's eyes aren't as bright as before, and she suddenly realises where the blood came from.

I'm fine, her friend repeats, but she engulfs her friend in a chest-squeezing hug all the same.

It.

She isn't blind to how her friend's squeezing far tighter this time, so she doesn't let go. Even though she knows that Father's probably sent security officers after her friend, even though every moment her friend spends here will put more miles between her friend and James.

But because of It, she lets her friend hang on for as long as she needs.

* * *

She's probably never seeing her again.

The vault door's still closed, but she's already mulling about how she's supposed to break it to her friend. Though she'd promised to accompany her, time alone in her room has her reconsidering.

Jenessa sends the gears creaking open with five keystrokes and a pull of a lever, and suddenly they're facing each other.

Too soon. She hasn't found a way to phrase it nicely. Time is what they need, but time never comes cheap.

She skirts around It with platitudes. She doesn't have to fake it: she's always admired Jenessa's tenacity. Nothing can stop her friend once her mind's set on something, even if it was dangerous. A week after the G.O.A.T, her friend wanted to program Andy to shave off the hair of the Tunnel Snakes, and she had.

(She knows full well that that's the only reason her friend is still alive)

 _Amata_ , Jenessa cuts in, and she knows that this is it. This is when she'll break her friend's heart.

 _I know I said I'd follow you, but now I can't. I need to stop my father. I'm probably the only one he'll still listen to._

She expects the pout and heart-twisting frown, but somehow, Jenessa understands. Her friend nods, smiling that warm smile that makes her feel fuzzy all over.

They hug again. It's less emotional than the one they shared minutes ago in her room, but she can still smell the comforting waft of oil and dust. In all respects, it's a friendly, _platonic_ hug.

Until Jenessa presses a kiss to her cheek.

She hasn't the time to react. Her friend's already fleeing into the tunnel - a bloodied bat in hand, and a 10mm pistol stuffed in the waistband of her jumpsuit.

A door slams with a crash, and Vault security swarms around her. She's dragged back into the vault while they hurl curses and unintelligible words into a cavernous entrance.

That matters little to her. Her cheek's still warm, and she finds herself touching it against her better judgement.

In spite of everything, Jenessa _knew_.


End file.
